2008 Buckeye Football Season

[Jaxbuck]

I hate to be a buzzkill but I'm still concerned about the interior DL and QB. If those two positions don't get A LOT better this year we are going to need to get very lucky.

In the spring game I watched 3 of the 4 DT rotation on the Scarlet (Larimore, Worthington and Abdallah) going against a Gray interior OL that wasn't exactly the cream of the crop (Mitchum, Moses and Malone). The DT's push and collapsing of the pocket was completely underwhelming to me. It looked pretty much like what we saw all of '07.

The bright side came when Denlinger was going against Conner Smith, Cordle and Blankenship and consistently getting penetration and collapsing the pocket.

TB's story is well documented, sufice it to say I'm one of those who felt he saw a carbon copy of '07 in the spring game instead of the leaps and bounds improvement I was hoping for.

Bottom line to me is I'm not getting too hyped up untill I see how these two areas look against the good teams. If we come out of Camp Randall with a win I'll be convinced, untill then I'm a bit skeptical.

 

[OregonBuckeye]

I'm really not concerned about the DT's. They went through their growing pains last year. Now they're mature, hopefully healthy, and there is added depth. They were played pretty damn well considering how extremely young and inexperienced(all 1st year starters, zero seniors, only one junior, only went two deep) they were last year. Denlinger, Wilson, and Rose missing extensive action last year didn't help either.

One thing to keep in mind about the spring game is it's one of the very few "games" the back-ups and walk-ons will get to play. They aren't playing any meaningful downs this year unless mass injuries occur. I'm sure those O-linemen just wanted it a lot more than the DT's. So, I wouldn't put too much stock into their performance.

I am concerned Todd will get rattled if he gets hit. He looked like he was about to wet himself a few times standing in the pocket against LSU and LSU didn't have Maualuga. All Todd has to do is make his checkdowns and if nothing's there, throw it away. No sacks, no fumbles, no int's. If he does that, we will be dominant the entire year. But, if Todd does get ants in his pants Tressel needs to pull him. This will be our best team for a while. No holding anything back this year.

 

[BB73]

I hate to be a buzzkill but I'm still concerned about the interior DL and QB.

I agree. Those were the only roster spots that seriously concerned me before last season, and there's still some doubt in my mind that the team will get national championship level performance from those positions.

 

[craigblitz]

I agree 100% Jaxbuck... Our interior DL is not NC quality.. at least it wasn't last year and unless we have huge improvement there I don't see us winning the NC or beating USC.

Having a great D-Line like we did in 2002 is si crucial to a great defense and winning big games. With great interior play, our blitz packages become so much better and will allow our gifted LB's make a lot of plays.

I agree with QB a little but Todd does not need to be a star, just need consistency with him. Eliminate the happy feet and stop locking on Hartline all the time. It seemed like every throw was Hartline on a slant of Robo deep. Need a little more then that from him for sure but with Chris Wells, Pryor, and the speed we have now I think a lot of pressure will be taken off Todd. Another thing the team can do to help Todd is with our special teams... Man what a drop-off last year. Granted there is only one Teddy, but wow, we were terrible in our return game. Troy had a lot of short fields to work with and I hope the team can do the same for Todd this year.

Go Bucks!

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

My position on the DL remains that improvement is to be expected. How much remains to be seen. While the Spring Game wasn't exactly a show-case for them, it was a fairly low scoring game.

The comparison to the 2001/2002 defensive lines has been done, so let's break it down in more detail:

2001/2002

What reason did we have to expect an improvement from the DL of the 7-5 team of 2001? We lost Mike Collins. Do you remember how good he was in the middle? In order to fill the gap, we had to bring Kenny Peterson in from DE. Let's face it, we were replacing what we thought was our best DL with a guy who would be playing out of position. The amount of improvement that this DL showed from one year to the next was phenomenal. We probably won't see as much improvement out of the '07 line, but we didn't go 7-5 last year. We don't need as much improvement as the 2001 line showed.


2007/2008

Last year, to call our line-up inexperienced to start the year would have been an understatement:

Name_________________Career Minutes
Doug Worthington______27
Nader Abdallah________23
Dexter Larimore:_______0
Todd Denlinger:_______91
Rob Rose:_____________33
Cameron Heyward:_______0
Vernon Gholston:_____291
​

Gholston was the only guy with more than 100 minutes. The two most experienced guys apart from him, Denlinger and Rose, ended up playing the fewest minutes of the bunch during '07 due to injury. The last time we had a DL this inexperienced was 2004. Do you remember 2004? These guys aquitted themselves pretty well by comparison.

This year, the experience to start the year looks like this:

Name_________________Career Minutes
Doug Worthington:_____220
Nader Abdallah:_______186
Dexter Larimore:______157
Todd Denlinger:_______199
Rob Rose:_____________138
Cameron Heyward:______216
Lawrence Wilson:______191

​

​

And when we play our next Bowl Game, these guys will have 400-500 minutes of experience. The above number don't guarantee improvement, but IMHO they give us a fair reason to expect it.

 

[pokey]

What about the right OT as a potential concern as the least experienced position on the o-line? Browning seemed to do well against Heyward, but had trouble handling Gibson's speed.

 

[Jaxbuck]

My position on the DL remains that improvement is to be expected. How much remains to be seen.

Agreed. Its a matter of degrees of improvement. I fear that the level of improvement will not match the increase in schedule difficulty.

We probably won't see as much improvement out of the '07 line, but we didn't go 7-5 last year. We don't need as much improvement as the 2001 line showed.

I would disagree. The DL last year was as bad against the run as we have seen in ages.

Imo there is a huge gap between where we were in '07 and where we will need to be to be the dominant team people are expecting.

At this point my fear is a repeat of '95 where we have a lot of talent and big names but a fatal weakness against the run that someone will eventually be able to exploit.

 

[seed702]

One thing to keep in mind about the spring game is it's one of the very few "games" the back-ups and walk-ons will get to play. They aren't playing any meaningful downs this year unless mass injuries occur. I'm sure those O-linemen just wanted it a lot more than the DT's. So, I wouldn't put too much stock into their performance.

I disagree with this. They are all going to see plenty of time. One thing Heacock has always done with the DLine is keep fresh legs in there. Granted, last year, there were a lot of unexperienced fresh legs, but fresh legs none the less.

[in my best JT voice] I think everyone being a year older, wiser, and stronger, they're all going to get playing time. In the early games, the younger guys might not get in the game as early as they would like. But as the season grinds along, and they get better, I think rotations start happening every few downs to keep fresh motors in the game. [/my best JT voice]

 

[OregonBuckeye]

I disagree with this. They are all going to see plenty of time. One thing Heacock has always done with the DLine is keep fresh legs in there. Granted, last year, there were a lot of unexperienced fresh legs, but fresh legs none the less.

I was referring to the OL.

Agreed. Its a matter of degrees of improvement. I fear that the level of improvement will not match the increase in schedule difficulty.


I would disagree. The DL last year was as bad against the run as we have seen in ages.

Imo there is a huge gap between where we were in '07 and where we will need to be to be the dominant team people are expecting.

At this point my fear is a repeat of '95 where we have a lot of talent and big names but a fatal weakness against the run that someone will eventually be able to exploit.

Jax, how much time have you been spending on bucknuts? :p

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

...The DL last year was as bad against the run as we have seen in ages. ...

2004 wasn't that long ago, was it?


More to the point: Where we disagree is how far the DL is from where they need to be. That's fine, you know I respect your opinion.

Consider though, that every defense we've had for the past few years has had one game (or two) that were just bad performances. In '05 it was against Minnesota, in '06 it was against TSUN and in the title game. Last year it was against Illinois.

But the rush-D performance in that Illinois game was mostly caused by uncharacteristically mistake-ridden LB play IMHO. The DTs themselves could have helped by getting more of a push, and they have said as much themselves. But they were very close to getting enough push most of the time. Improve the push just a little and you get a much different result.

Where the DL was exposed was against a noticeably stronger LSU offensive line. Yes LSU rushed 49 times for only 152 yards, barely 3 yards a carry; but the problem is that they got their average by consistently gaining postive yardage. Clearly the DL was being beaten.

But that's not the same as getting pushed around all over the place like we have seen in the distant past (think late 80s).

Where we agree is that the productivity needs to go way up. But where we see things differently can be summed up thus: I think a little improvement will go a long way.

 

[seed702]

I was referring to the OL.

Oh, my bad.

 

[Jaxbuck]

Where we agree is that the productivity needs to go way up. But where we see things differently can be summed up thus: I think a little improvement will go a long way.

Lets hope you are right.

 

[generaladm]

The DL last year was as bad against the run as we have seen in ages.

Not sure exactly how you're measuring that. OSU was #3 in 1A against the run with 77.1 yds/gm allowed. We have had better run Ds in the recent past, but not by much. Anytime you can hold opponents to less than 80 is pretty amazing. I think you're focusing on the few times when they got pushed around. PSU got had some success in the 1st qtr with great O-line stunts, but only netted 139 for the game. KSU's little scat back gave everyone fits, mostly on the outside. Washington ran for 142, 109 by Locker. I agree with DBB that much of Illinois' success was due to LBs missing assignments. I'm not saying that the DT's don't have lots of room for improvement, but if they're our biggest weakness, we're in pretty good shape. Considering the injuries that plagued the D-line last year, I think they did a very good job, for the most part. With the valuable playing time from last season and players returning from injuries, the DTs should be markedly improved. I have read online posts from poeple who are around the off season workouts that the DTs are going to be a strength this year. We'll find out in the fall how good the D-line will be this year. Until then, I think it's safe to assume that they are all working their asses off.

 

[Jaxbuck]

Not sure exactly how you're measuring that. OSU was #3 in 1A against the run with 77.1 yds/gm allowed. We have had better run Ds in the recent past, but not by much. Anytime you can hold opponents to less than 80 is pretty amazing. I think you're focusing on the few times when they got pushed around.

The few times they got pushed around seemed to coincide with playing a decent team.

If you want to let stats mostly compiled against the sisters of the poor make you feel like the interior DL play was good then don't let me stop you. If you want to look at what Illinois and LSU did to us then I don't see how anyone can be anything less than concerned. They seemed less than impressed with our #3 rank against the run.

 

[mercer_buckeye]

The few times they got pushed around seemed to coincide with playing a decent team.

If you want to let stats mostly compiled against the sisters of the poor make you feel like the interior DL play was good then don't let me stop you. If you want to look at what Illinois and LSU did to us then I don't see how anyone can be anything less than concerned. They seemed less than impressed with our #3 rank against the run.

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